by Cheryl Holt
“Where has Mr. Boswell taken him?” Benjamin asked.
“How would I know?” his mother simpered. “It’s a family issue that has naught to do with us.”
From how she glanced away, he was certain she was lying. Where would Mr. Boswell hide him? With how his mother was acting, Benjamin was sure it was a very horrid place.
He’d always viewed Michael Fenwick as an annoying dandy, but very quietly, very lethally, he said to Millicent, “If we ultimately discover that Caleb has been harmed because of you, ma’am, I will sneak into your home some night and murder you in your sleep.”
The threat sent his mother and Wesley into squeals of outrage, and Wesley leapt to his feet and shouted, “Shut up, you dirty dog.”
Benjamin had to step between them or Wesley might have lunged at Fenwick. “Sit down, Wesley, and Mr. Fenwick, be silent or leave.”
Fenwick looked dignified and incensed in a way Benjamin wouldn’t have predicted he could be.
“My sister is far above all of you in rank and station,” he proclaimed.
“Don’t be absurd,” Veronica scoffed.
Fenwick continued. “I will not allow her to be insulted by your paltry relatives, Captain Grey. If you decline to discuss this in a civil manner, we’re happy to go to the newspapers and reveal your perfidy.”
“No one is heading to the newspapers,” Benjamin hurriedly said. He spun to Annabel. “Out in the ballroom, you mentioned that my mother bribed you.”
“She offered me a hundred pounds to disappear with Caleb,” Annabel replied, “but I insisted I couldn’t possibly consent for less than two hundred. She gave it to me without argument.”
Millicent was unrepentant. “Of course I bribed her! I had to see how corrupt she was, and I easily learned her true character.”
“Oh, Mother...” Benjamin sighed.
Millicent sneered at Annabel. “I have to ask again why you’re here, Miss Fenwick. We had an agreement. I paid good money to be shed of you, yet you have broken the terms a few hours later. It’s only fitting that you return my money to me.”
Annabel snorted with disdain. “I suggest you pick it up off the ballroom floor—if any of it is still there. I noticed your rich friends were stuffing it in their pockets.”
“Hussy!” Millicent hissed. “Trollop! Liar!”
“Mother!” Benjamin snapped.
Fenwick dove at her so Benjamin had to physically restrain him. Annabel grabbed him too and pulled him away.
“Don’t mind her,” Annabel murmured to her brother. “Her world is falling apart, and she can’t stop what’s happening. I pity her.”
His family members bristled at the comment, and Benjamin couldn’t abide their presence.
“This is what we will do,” he said. “Wesley, take Mother and Veronica home.”
“I’m not your servant, Benjamin,” Wesley grumbled. “I’ll take Mother, but you’ll have to deal with your fiancée on your own. I’m not her nanny.” Wesley extended his hand to Millicent. “Come, Mother. I’ve had enough of the Fenwick siblings to last a lifetime.”
“I’ll depart as you’ve commanded,” Millicent said to Benjamin, “but don’t you make any promises to these two charlatans.”
“Go, Mother!” he fumed. “And wait up for me. You and I are due to have a long talk.”
“I am absolutely looking forward to it.”
She and Wesley swept out then Benjamin said to Veronica, “Step out into the hall for a minute. I’ll escort you home after I’ve conferred with Miss Fenwick.”
But Veronica didn’t move. She simply studied Annabel, her scathing assessment bouncing off Annabel like dull arrows. Annabel was more beautiful, more stunning, more exotic in every way. Veronica was pretty, but in any competition with Annabel she would always lose out.
She frowned at Benjamin and said, “You will not stay in here with her, Benjamin. I forbid it.”
“You forbid it?” Benjamin was aghast at her audacity.
“I know what she is to you,” Veronica responded, “and you will not shame me by being locked in with her.”
Benjamin wasn’t about to debate the issue, and he turned to Michael Fenwick. “Would you take my fiancée out into the hall? I need to speak with your sister.”
Fenwick stared at Annabel. “What say you, Annabel? May I leave you alone with him?”
“He doesn’t scare me,” she replied. “Get that little shrew out of my sight. I’ve had all of her snippy attitude I can tolerate for one evening.”
Veronica huffed with indignation. “Are you calling me a shrew?”
“Yes, Miss Mason, I am. Now Captain Grey and I have adult matters to discuss that don’t concern you.” Annabel waved to the door as if Veronica was a bothersome gnat. “Be gone before you make me angry.”
“Well, I never!” Veronica seethed, but Fenwick intervened.
“Don’t fuss over it, Veronica,” he smoothly said. “You don’t like him that much anyway. There’s no reason to tarry and allow him to boss you.”
There were so many things wrong with the remark that Benjamin couldn’t decide how to address any of them. But Fenwick seemed to recognize he’d tripped over an inappropriate line. Veronica too. They hustled out without further argument.
He and Annabel were frozen in place until the door shut then she leaned in so their bodies were pressed together, the wide skirt of her gown tangled around his legs.
“Swear to me you didn’t kidnap him,” Annabel said.
“I swear it.”
“Then it had to be Mr. Boswell. Caleb was sitting on my stoop, and neighbors saw two men seize him and run away.”
“I can’t believe Boswell would dare.”
When Soloman found out what had occurred, he would have an apoplexy. After the scandal a decade earlier where they’d failed to keep Caleb safe, they couldn’t let him suffer any harm.
“I should have realized Boswell might interfere,” she said. “I should have been careful. I was just so glad to have him away from them. I wasn’t wary—when I should have been.”
“Where would Boswell take him?” Benjamin asked.
“I have no idea, but it will be somewhere I could never locate him.”
“I’ll visit Boswell tonight. I’ll start searching immediately. I’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“Find him for me. Find him and bring him back.”
She brushed a kiss across his mouth, and though he reached for her to pull her into his arms, she slipped away and rushed out, vanishing so quickly she might never have been there at all.
MICHAEL WAS RELAXED AGAINST the wall of the hallway, but Veronica was pacing. He didn’t suppose they should linger right outside the room where she might hear things she shouldn’t so he dragged her around the corner where it was deserted and quiet.
“How long do you imagine they’ll be in there?” she inquired.
“Not long,” he said.
“Will they...they...”
She didn’t possess the vocabulary to converse about intimate behavior, and Michael put her out of her misery. “My sister is simply worried about Caleb. I’m sure they will confer on that topic and naught else.”
“Don’t call him that!”
“What? Caleb?”
“Yes, don’t give that boy any credence.”
“I can’t help it if you refuse to accept the truth.”
“The truth according to your sister,” she jeered. “With her low morals revealed, no one will believe her.”
Michael had no doubt his nephew was Caleb Grey. His sister, Lydia, was a lunatic, and he’d known Miss Peggy since he was a small child. She wasn’t the sort to fabricate or lie, and once she’d stopped protecting Lydia, she’d walked out onto a dangerous ledge where she could be hanged.
In his opinion, her willingness to face that dire consequence firmly verified her version of events.
“Are Benjamin and your sister...lovers?” Veronica asked.
“No,” he fibbed. “They’re just
friends.”
“He seems so smitten by her.”
“Every man who meets her is smitten. She has that type of female allure. It just oozes out of her.”
“I can’t bear to think of them in there alone!” she wailed.
“Really, Veronica, get a grip on yourself. You’re acting like a spoiled toddler, and I don’t like it.”
“My life is in tatters, Michael! And it’s all because of your sister and this...imposter she’s wedged into our world. Every dream I ever had is about to be dashed!”
He sighed with irritation and gazed down the hall, yearning for his sister or the Captain to appear so his duty to dawdle with Veronica would conclude.
“You’re being silly,” he told her. “A few days ago, you traveled to Grey Manor because you were desperate to apprise me of how you weren’t certain you still wanted to wed Captain Grey. You weren’t certain you wanted to be a countess. Now you’re claiming your life is over.” He glowered at her. “Make up your mind. Which is it?”
She halted and stumbled forward so she was leaned into him, her torso pressed to his all the way down. Clearly, she was seeking a kiss, but he was weary of her. He had to shift his sights to a girl who tantalized him and who wasn’t so tedious and irksome.
“I’m so confused, Michael!” she moaned.
“I can tell,” he muttered, not caring at all that she was.
“Take me away from here. I have to figure out the best path, and I’m so upset.”
“I’m not the person you should discuss it with.”
“You’re closer to me than anyone. If you won’t listen, who will?”
“How about your fiancé? This is a subject that concerns him very much.”
“Discuss it with Benjamin? Are you mad? You saw how he treats me.”
Yes, Michael had observed their interactions, and he’d also seen how the Captain treated Annabel. There was no comparison. He’d insisted to Annabel that—in the end—she just might win him for her own. Hopefully, the idiotic, pompous Captain Grey would come to his senses or he would proceed into a hideous matrimonial blunder.
Michael wished it was his business to intervene. The Captain might be many years older and have many more experiences under his belt, but Michael understood more about women than the Captain ever could. He could urgently use Michael’s advice that Veronica was a flighty, immature flirt, and he would be miserable forever.
“He’s your betrothed, Veronica,” he said. “If you no longer want him to be, you need to speak up.”
“But I don’t know what I want! I don’t know!”
Her face was tilted up to his, with her definitely begging for a kiss, and Michael had intended to ease her away but suddenly Wesley was beside them.
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” he groused.
Veronica didn’t move away from Michael so Michael moved for her.
“Veronica is merely a tad disturbed about my nephew,” Michael lied. “I was comforting her.”
“I’m aware of what kind of comfort you expect to provide,” Wesley spat, “and don’t mention your nephew in my presence.” He scowled at Veronica. “Mother is waiting for our carriage to be retrieved, and she demanded I locate you and ask if you’d like to come with us, but it’s evident you’re otherwise occupied. I’ll inform her you’ve arranged your own ride.”
Michael was eager to escape both of them, but before he could leave Captain Grey rounded the corner. “Veronica! There you are. I’ve been searching everywhere.”
He staggered to a halt, noting the strident emotion that was practically bouncing off the walls. The three of them had to look guilty as sin.
“What’s going on?” The Captain’s query smashed into the middle of a deadly silence.
“Ask Veronica,” Wesley said. “She’ll tell you.”
“Nothing’s going on,” she hurriedly said.
“Tell me!” The Captain barked the order as if they were privates under his command. “Wesley, you and Veronica have been bickering for days, and I’m sick of it. What’s happening? Fenwick, you start.”
“Goodnight, Captain,” was his answer. He trotted off, Wesley behind him, and Veronica brought up the rear.
At the last second, he glanced back to see the Captain watching them. From his shrewd expression, it appeared several matters had finally become clear. What would he do about it?
HIS IS THE LAST time. He will not be back.”
Edward Boswell tarried in Lydia’s dim, dank parlor. It was a cold, blustery autumn afternoon. The drapes were closed so it was dark as a tomb. She didn’t have a fire lit so the temperature was cold as ice. He was eager to speak his piece then go. If he was lucky, he’d never cross paths with her again.
She was a trembling wreck, huddled in a chair by the hearth and wrapped in a heavy shawl. While usually he liked women to be meek and deferential, to read their Bible and humbly submit to their husbands, he couldn’t abide her groveling and anxious demeanor. Every facet of her personality set him on edge.
When Milton had married her without permission, Edward hadn’t understood why Lydia had fascinated him so thoroughly. Of course she’d been much prettier then, and over the intervening years, she’d fallen apart. Her hair was turning grey, her face lined with frowns. She was only thirty-two, but she appeared elderly and decrepit.
“Your sister convinced him to run away from school,” he said. “He was staying with her in town, and she was using him in a blackmail scheme.”
Lydia scowled. “What scheme?”
“Madam, she was telling people Harry is Caleb Grey.”
“No!” Lydia put a hand over her mouth as if she might be ill.
“I see that you recognize the name: Caleb Grey, Lord Lyndon. For a decade now, the Grey family has been hoping for a miracle.”
“Yes, I imagine they would be.”
“They have been preyed upon by sharks and charlatans who claimed they’d found the boy.”
“How awful for them.” Lydia stared at her feet.
“Your sister has become one of those charlatans. She had orchestrated a scam to extort money from them.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Boswell. I’m so sorry.”
“Your being sorry doesn’t help, Lydia. She is still your sister. You are still related to her. Your brother hadn’t shown up yet. Who can predict what shenanigans they would have perpetrated after he arrived?”
“I can’t begin to guess.”
“I have once again been exposed to scandal and rumor because of you.”
She pulled her gaze from the floor and locked it on his. “Not because of me! I haven’t done anything! I’ve simply lived quietly and minded my own business.”
“I have asked you repeatedly to control your siblings.”
“I know, but they’re uncontrollable.”
“Precisely,” he scoffed. “There is no persuading them on any issue, and obviously your son is possessed of all their bad traits. He is willful, stubborn, rebellious, and impertinent.”
“I tried my best to drive out those horrid attributes, sir, and I regret that I didn’t succeed.”
“I have indentured him to the merchant marines,” he abruptly announced.
Without hesitation, she said, “I’m sure that’s an excellent plan.”
He’d always deemed her to be the oddest female.
That sort of indenture was a desperate fate. Life at sea was perilous, and while the typical term should have been for seven years Edward had signed him on for a full decade. The chances were great that he wouldn’t survive or if he managed it he would come home completely altered.
Yet she didn’t display the tiniest bit of maternal concern. They could have been talking about a stranger.
“Were you aware, Lydia, that he was participating in your sister’s plot? He had started to believe he was Caleb Grey which indicates he has madness in his veins.”
“I’ve often thought he might be deranged,” she said.
“I’ve often thought you were too s
o I feel confident in saying: like mother, like son.”
“There’s no need to be spiteful, Mr. Boswell.”
“No, there isn’t. You ensnared Milton into matrimony when you shouldn’t have. You finagled him to disobey me. My son—who had never disobeyed me—did so because of you.”
“I apologize that I wasn’t the daughter-in-law you were expecting.”
There was a lethal silence that went on for an eternity. He wasn’t a deliberately cruel man, but he was a man who pinched his pennies. He didn’t like to squander or waste them. He’d done his duty by furnishing her with a house and paying her expenses, but Milton had been dead for nearly a decade, and the child she’d produced with him wasn’t worth a farthing.
The obstinate brat had actually insisted Edward wasn’t his grandfather. He’d insisted he wasn’t a Boswell. Well, so be it.
“I will be closing up the cottage,” he told her.
She frowned. “But...where will I go? Are you moving me to town?”
“No, Lydia. I am selling the cottage. I will give you three months to leave, and I think it’s a fair amount of time.”
“Why must I leave? How have I displeased you? I’ve never been any trouble. You can’t kick me out.”
She looked bewildered and confused, and he pitied her. What would become of her? He had no idea and didn’t really care. She was the most useless, ineffectual person he’d ever met.
“I can kick you out, Lydia. You have three months.”
“What about my widow’s stipend?”
“It’s ending too.”
“I was a good wife to Milton. I was a good daughter-in-law to you. You can’t say I wasn’t.”
“You had one role in my family, Lydia, and it was to birth a son to Milton. You delivered the boy we required, but he is a child we don’t want!”
“How is that my fault?”
“You are his mother and you have the audacity to ask that question?”
She clasped his wrist, as if by holding onto him she could make him agree with her point of view. He grimaced with distaste and pulled away.
“Goodbye, Lydia.”
She began to sob, and he couldn’t abide a weepy woman. He spun and hurried away, and as he stepped outside a coach was lumbering toward the house.